Also better healthcare. My parents have friends that moved from the US to Canada due to this and the very competitive job market in the US with virtually no employee rights. They weren't working in tech but banking/services.
In some ways, perhaps. The fact we frequently have to pay for prescribed medication is mind-blowingly ridiculous. Even with medical insurance (through your employer or paying for the plan yourself), you're usually forced to use generic medications if you want coverage - even when your doctor signs a Special Authority[0] form to have your medication covered. And yes, there can be pretty substantial differences between name brand and generic.
> substantial differences between name brand and generic
I was under the impression generics are molecular identical? How do they differ when the name brand version says on the pack, for example, temazepam 10mg, and the generic version says the same thing?
Lolwut? Two products produced by two different companies, expected to be of the same caliber? Nonsense. Utter nonsense.
Look into the "Warning Letters" database for generics producers vs. branded. It's ridiculous the amount of things generics producers get away with (contaminated product, improper facility maintenance, improper purity and potency oversight, poor quality control).
They're not the same thing. No matter how many laymen -- or worse actual medical professionals who think they know pharma just because they sell pills -- parrot the "fillers causing side-effects" bullshit.
The only thing generics providers need to do is establish a very loose bioequivalency through self-tested experiments (the FDA doesn't conduct the experiments or oversees them, only reviews the results and methodology). Once accepted, shady decisions are easy to cover up, since the FDA only does visits infrequently.
It's like buying on Amazon. You could get the original brand's product or some knock-off. Except in this case, the knock-off is state-supported.
> The only thing generics providers need to do is establish a very loose bioequivalency through self-tested experiments (the FDA doesn't conduct the experiments or oversees them, only reviews the results and methodology)
Though buying brand may not protect you from this. Brand name companies change up plants, processes, API suppliers, etc. without notifying end-users. They just do the same kind of testing a generic supplier may.
They have the same pressures to reduce cost as much as a generic manufacturer does.
There are optical isomers and such that could make a difference. But even the brand names may change this up from time to time.
Then there's the whole 99% pure thing, but that 1% could be made up of highly carcinogenic nitrosamines in the microgram doses that aren't as closely tracked as they should be. But buying brand may not protect you from this, or could be worse.
Working for a Silicon Valley tech company, you typically have extremely good health insurance and a vastly higher salary than anything in Canada. Salaries north of the border are a pittance compared to what you could earn in even a mid-tiered US city. I remember about 3 years ago being offered a “senior” “lead” rails developer position in Toronto paying $C30 per hour. And a non-lead was paying $C25 per hour. Ridiculous. And Toronto isn’t a cheap city. I made triple that working remotely for a Kansas City company.
Canada is a nice place, live there if you want, but “competitive compensation” is definitely not a reason.
Using a single experience to invalidate a whole country as a place to have a competitive compensation is a bit unfair. Am sure you can find people paying even less than that for lead web developers in the USA.
If you look at levels.fyi Amazon seems to be paying around 180k TC for SD2 in Vancouver. I would rather live in Vancouver with 180K than in the US with 250k.
(Am talking local currencies as when I am living in a country I spend the money in local currency.)
I live in canada. While its true there is less money here than usa, those numbers sound pretty low. Maybe that employer was just trying to screw you over?
Yes, because every tech worker in SF gets stabbed for $5 in their wallet and everyday they walk through poo on their way to work.
On a more serious note, you should learn about how the media works.
One person gets stabbed in SF for $5 and it makes the news, and then people like you believe that every one of the 884k people living in SF get stabbed.
You probably also believe that all Teslas easily catch on fire? Cause you saw it on the news?
Please learn about statistics and sensationalist media.
[0] https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/practitioner-profe...